27: Second at the NE 100. We only raced on Saturday but we got around Aquidneck in light air.
Off to a US Sailing Team training camp and the Nacra 17 Nationals this week.

26: New top speed

26: Liza and I in the cruising class again today. Hopefully we won on corrected, we were almost a leg ahead due to the long reaches and good breeze. Top speed was over 13 knots, not bad for two sail cruising.

25: Sunday Cruise

Short cruise to New Haven with Gusty, Bob and Liza.

24: Cruising Class

Zaza driving to line honors in the cruising class.

23: Hyannis

Hyannis Regatta: Friday was a bust, rain, 30 knots, fog and no racing. Five races on a great Saturday with about 18 knots out of the south. We won plenty of races and I think we got the boat going a bit better than we have in the past in this condition. Sunday was light and we only won one of the three races. We didn't have any great speed and went to the wrong side on a few legs. We won the event, good to have Tyler back!

Results

21: Beer Can

Another slow beer can race. At least the wind filled in/

20: Sail Newport Regatt

Garth and I got edged out by Ben Moon and Hunter Stunzi sailing the Ronstan boat. The wind was a bit better today and we got five races in. Conditions where mostly single trapping.

Results

Pictures

19: Sail Newport Regatta

Sailing with Garth this weekend. Only one race today due to almost no wind. We finished second to the Guliano brothers who were way ahead of the fleet. Almost half the fleet couldn't get to the start in time and missed the time limit to start.

18: Beer Can

DFL at the beer can race, A lot to learn about the new boat.

17:Cruising

A drifter with Liza today, we only got about a half mile west of Cow and Calf before we headed back home.

16: Cruising

Second day on the 24 with Zaza, Tommy and Lizzie. Nice 15 knot southerly.
Replaced the battery and got the electronics working in the afternoon.

15: First day on the Corsair 24

New Boat

The new boat finally arrived and is safely on the dock.

Pressure Drop is on her way to a new home, ending our fantastic decade with the Hobie 16 class.

The new (to us) boat, a Corsair 24 MKII # 361, should arrive next week some time. The Hobie 16 is going to a good home and should be sailing in New Jersey this summer.

16: Madison Regatta
I sailed with a young guy named Ben, his first catamaran regatta. We didn't do too well but we had fun.

14: Test drove an F24 today.

13: Spent the weekend sailing a Viper 640 with Tripp Burd and Justin Scott at the Cedar Point One Design Regatta and Viper 640 New England Championships. We won the regatta with good starts and good speed.

Results

Some video of us rounding second with the blue spinnaker. A nice set.

11: I got the Cape Dory 10 up to Pettipaug today and went for a quick spinn.

10: Two nice days of sailing at the Wickford Regatta in 18 knots and flat water.

Results

Pictures

9: Wickford Regatta; we have a small fleet because there are two competing regattas this weekend. Tyler and I won all four races today but the Trip and Mike team are not at the event.

Our Hobie 16 Pressure Drop is for sale.

The boat is a 2006 Hobie 16. We bought it new for the 2007 Pan AM Games.

The beams have been glued so the boat is still stiff.
2 sets of EPO2 race rudders.
2 sets of sails
Trailex Aluminum trailer with a box that fits everything
Cat Trax
I’ve also got a cheap cover that none the less does the job.
The boat is ready to race.

$7,000 takes everything

Pictures are all over this blog

Liza is ready to go cruising. Looking for a good F-24

8. Sailed the Laser in the CT River Race on Saturday. Light wind and upwind all day. I got a bad start and was going slow most of the day. It's a fun race however.

7: Last day of pre-season. We went for a short sail in Newport with puffy conditions before packing up the F18.
We almost ran over a model boat regatta but noticed them at the last minute.

6: We had a good day practicing in Newport on the F18. Ken Read was rigging up his new Marstrom 32 on the lawn. There will be three more 32's in Newport this June.

5: Last day for me of Lasers in Essex.The wind was light and shifty out of the north with lots of current. I finished second for the day to and amazingly consistent Dave P over the three races.

4: F18 Practice in Newport



need more practice..

3: Practiced with the Yale Team this afternoon. It was about 50F outside with a nice southerly for most of the afternoon. Thanks Heather and Sarah for sailing with me.

Dusting off the Hobie 16 for Madcatter with Liza this year.

2: A warmer day of Laser sailing last Sunday. I won the day.

1: Laser Frostbite, I finally made it out on a cold and windy day. Five firsts in five races.

Yea, it's just a little under seven minutes of me moving back and forth but getting nowhere.

CRASH-B Live Link
Race is Sunday and lightweight senior masters men start at 10:45 +/-
My 2000m PR is 6:54.9, anything better than that would b great for me.

CRASH-B Training Schedule

10 more days

Long weekend skiing with Zaza

8 weeks out

Registered for the CRASH-B Sprints.
Working for a sub 7:00.

5 mile Turkey Trot by merrickbob at Garmin Connect - Details

31: A beautiful Laser Sunday on the river. Temps over 60F and a nice south west wind at about ten knots. Lots of current going upwind so it was down wind most of the way around. Won the day.

30: Laser Frostbiting at FBYC. It's been a while. Won the day.

29: Archipelago Rally

Prepping a new to me Cape Dory 10 for the 2012 Archipelago Rally next weekend.
I won the first event in 2006 sailing a Hobie 14 and have not been back since. It finally works in my schedule this year.

27: HPDO
A long day, up at 4:00am to get to Rye NY by 6:15 so we could put the boat together after the trip back from Long Beach. We had good wind 10-18 knots and four races. We managed a 1,1,2,2 with some luck at times. Bad luck the fifth race of the day was abandoned as we got to the windward mark in first, starting at the pin on port and almost laying.
Results

26: F18 Worlds are over we finished 28th overall, not terrible but not great. We had good speed in the light and medium stuff but were off the pace downwind in breeze. The good news is we learned a bunch about sailing upwind in breeze.
Results
Race Replays

22: Day 1 We had two good starts in the first two races with good upwind speed and OK down wind. Conditions where single trapping +/- all day. In the third race we had a horrendous start and only got back to a 24. We are 24 overall at the moment.

 21: Practice race was typically chaotic today and with very light wind. First two starts were general recalls. On the third recall a big group just continued on racing. We went back bu then decided to join in on the second mark because this was clearly going to be the only racing for the day. We sailed a run and 3/4 of a beat when the race committee pulled the marks and we went in.
Racing starts for real tomorrow.
There will be live tracking on Kattack.

No sailing today, just a little boat work and a bit of a rest. Practice race tomorrow.

20: We had a good sail yesterday doing some more trapezoid work with Brooks and Jeff. The reach legs are going to be tricky. Monday is a practice race so we will have a good chance to check it out before teh scores count.

19: We practiced by ourselves today, working on some boat handling around a trapezoid course (same four channel buoys we went around yesterday.  The bonus for the day was unexpectedly getting through measurement in the afternoon.

18: Another day of practice races on a short course yesterday. The track was a bit small for the number of boats so not crashing was the priority for the day. The emphasis on boat-handling has caused us to want to change some of our systems so we will do that today. Measurement is this weekend.

17: We were the first boat off the beach today and had a little trapezoid practice by ourselves until other boats got out.  The Omani coach set up a windward leeward so we got a little racing practice in with about ten boats till we ripped our spinnaker on the main sail batten (not bearing off enough for the set). It's fixable and it's not our best spinnaker (we have 3 here) so we should be OK without it.

16: F18 Worlds
The boat is together and on he beach. We went for a quick sail yesterday and tuned up with whoever was out there. The boat feels good and everything went together without any problems. We'll do another short sail today.

The boat is on it's way to Long Beach for the worlds where we plan to join it on on September 2nd. That will give us plenty of sailing time to warm up before the event starts on the 11th.

15: NE100
I crewed with Robert Todd last weekend on the Capricorn. We lost a port cover on Saturday and took on a bunch of water in a pitch-pole (see where the GPS track ends on Sat) but we did make it back to Quonset to finish. Sunday was a bit better, rounded Jamestown to port and Prudence to starboard. A fun time. I think we finished 6 or 7 overall. Got the crew card back and feeling good except that my hands were all cut up.

Fig1: Saturday

Fig 2: Sunday

PS: Yes when you sail with a PHD you get GPS plots generated with MATLAB.

13: Hyannis Regatta
Still learning. Our light and medium air sailing has improved enough to be winning Hyannis after two days in this condition. Unfortunately we are a bit off the pace in the heavy stuff. We got better throughout the day on Sunday. Found we were too slow to add diamond tension. That combined with some navigational errors that   destroyed our first two races on Sunday dropped us to second AGAIN. Still we beat some good teams so we are happy with that.
Results

10: Newport Regatta
We had an up and down weekend, deadly slow at times. We did work some speed issues out particularly upwind in a bit of breeze (depowering earlier) and in the medium stuff (holding height better through the lulls).
We won four of 10 races so we are getting more able to take some wins from Tripp and Mike but the rest of the fleet is getting closer at the same time.
Results 

8: ACWS Demonstration Event
We spent the weekend racing F18's on the AC45 course in Newport before they raced in the afternoons. It was a great chance to show off our class in front of a few thousand sailors.

6: Fun practice day in Newport on Sunday. All the AC 45's were in town trying to practice outside Fort Adams but swarmed by tourists, including us on the F18.
We will have a mini-regatta on Sat and Sunday (June 30-July 1) off of the fort before the 45's start racing next weekend. We will race from 10:00 to 1:30.

Mast up in Newport.

5: JMOR The short story is we managed to win the last three races of the regatta so I think we are improving, or Mike was getting bored. Hard to know for sure.

Regatta Report

Proper numbers

Wickford Recap and Pictures

3: Wickford Regatta

Tyler and I finally got the new boat on the water and were off to a great start in Wickford winning the first two races in light conditions. As the breeze got into the marginal double trappezing conditions Mike Easton, with substitute crew Parker Shinn, has consistently been faster than us in this condition but we’re nipping at their heels. We learned some new things in this condition and getting faster.

Results

1: Sea trial
Not such a great shake down. There was a big bang two minutes into our first upwind and the rig went soft. Somehow the mast base got out of position and ended up inside the mast.

0: Getting a late start this year. Picking up the new F18 tomorrow. Hope to have it set up in Newport and go for a sail on Sunday.

0: I'm not doing much sailing this winter, too busy with school for a few more weeks. I'll do a few weekends on the Laser before the new F18 arrives in April. Tyler Burd and I are teaming up this year with a focus on the F18 Worlds in Long Beach CA in September.

40: Windy day on the river. I flipped twice but had decent speed. David Peck probably won the day.

39: A nice day in the Laser. Wind was out of the west-south-west at five to fifteen. There was a strong cross current. I won the first few races then a few more decent ones.

38: Tough first day back in the Laser. I flipped twice. Probably finished third for the day, at best.

(actually won for the day by just a point)

37: HPDO

It was a light and variable weekend and the first time sailing with Tyler Burd. My upwind boat speed has been poor in this condition but we did improve quite a bit and figured some things out.
Results

35: F18 North Americans Video, Tracking and Results

Event Website

Results

Link to Kattack tracking.

Pictures

F18 North Americans - Rigging Day. from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

F18 North Americans — Day One from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

F18 North Americans — Day Two from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

F18 North Americans Day 3 from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

F18 North Americans from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

The Lady behind the Racers from CriticalEnds Productions on Vimeo.

30: Buzzards Bay Regatta

Three races on Friday with Jonathan and four with Colin on Saturday. No racing on Sunday due to high winds. Friday started with a drifter that most of the fleet missed because they couldn't get out to the course on time. After a long postponement we had two good races in a moderate sea-breeze. Saturday had nice wind at about 18 knots and good sized waves.

Results

28: Hyannis Regatta
Finally sailing with Jonathan. We had a nice warm Northerly breeze on Friday and Saturday then good sea-breeze conditions on Sunday after a long on-shore postponement. There was barely a wind shift to be had all weekend so it was boat speed conditions. It's safe to say we were the second fastest boat in the fleet of 24. We finished 2nd in all ten races. Tripp and Mike managed a 1st in nine of ten races. We could get close to them if it was windy enough but they dominated in the powered up conditions. We'll try again this weekend at BBR.

Results

25: Barnegat Breezer
Not a bad finish for us 3rd, despite some rough times. We had great weather and great breeze on both days.
Some good pictures here: http://ordering.michaelbagleyphoto.com/p991273920

Results:

23: Newport Regatta:
We started off kind of slow, racing badly in light and fluky conditions on Saturday. On Sunday we got a bit of a sea-breeze and had good starts to move up a bit to finish second for the weekend. Trip and Mike dominated in their new boat. It's going to take some work to take a bite out of them at the next regatta.
Results

21: Extreme Sailing Series

Interesting event and a fun experience. I'll have a full report in Sailing World in the near future.

All systems GO for Boston.

Sakonnet Results

15: We won the only race on Sunday. It was kind of windy and lots of boats flipped over. The Coast Guard showed up and forced us to go in for the day.
We won the regatta and had a great time despite the rainy weather. Chris and Sam were second and the Giuliano's were third.

14: I counted 16 boats on the line today, not too bad. Win was out of the east, across the river and shifty. Velocity was 5-15 knots +/-. We had an OK day with a 3,3,1,1,2, so we should be at the top of the heap.

13: Colin and I went out for a short sail at Sany Point beach this afternoon. Everything ready for the weekend.

Sailing with my brother Colin (team racing world champion) in our home town this weekend.

12: Joe Manganello Memorial
I was sailing with Emmett Smith who won the Wilson Trophy Team Race a few weeks ago.
We got off to a bad start missing the start of the first race because I was messing around with the rig. We finished last. We won the next race and a few more to end Saturday with a last, three first a fourth and a third, or something like that. The wind was about ten knots from the west going south.
Sunday our starts were terrible but we managed to win a few races. In the last race we were way ahead and sailed past the finish line thinking we were sailing another course. We finished the race in 5th and won the regatta.

Results

Things are up in the air with Team Extreme for the Boston event right now. The team is working on getting a complete boat to race.

10: Madcatter
We got four good races in on Sunday. We didn't do so great and finished 8th.
Results

9. Madcatter day 1. No wind. We started one race then abandoned.

I just confirmed that I'll be racing in the Boston leg of the Extreme Sailing Series with Team Extreme. I'll be doing bow, should be fun.

8: We had a nice weekend racing in Rehoboth last weekend. After a terrible first day we ended up second for the weekend, with a bit of luck in race 2 on Saturday that made all the difference in the end. I got some video but haven't been able to look at it yet.

Results

Installing some new rudder cams on the 16. We are actually sailing the boat this weekend. The last regatta Liza and I sailed together was Madcatter last year!

6: Nice day, about 65 F with 15 knots of wind out of the south and close to a knot of current going upwind. We had 8 races. I think I won 5 of them. That's it for Laser season.

5: We had six races in the rain today. I had some bad ones but won three. Not sure if I won the day or not. I thought I got some video but evidently the batteries in the camera were not full charged because they didn't make it to the first race.

4: Light air today but we got seven races in. I got off to a slow start but had some good races in the end to win the day.